Middle East & North Africa

The Arab Spring: Pathways of Repression and Reform investigates the wide variance of occurrence and outcomes of Arab uprisings and the deep historical and structural roots of power imbalances within societies to ask why regime change took place in only four Arab countries and why democratic change proved so elusive in the countries that made attempts.

"Concern over nuclear proliferation is likely to increase in the coming years. Many observers believe that the spread of nuclear weapons to one or two more states will trigger a wave of new nuclear states. More states may turn to nuclear power to meet their energy needs as other sources of energy become more costly or undesirable because they emit carbon that contributes to global climate change. As more nuclear reactors are built, the world's stock of nuclear expertise and fissionable materials is likely to grow."

The threat of terror has given the problem of failed states an unprecedented immediacy and importance. In the past, failure had a primarily humanitarian dimension, with fewer implications for peace and security. Now nation-states that fail, or may do so, pose dangers to themselves, to their neighbors, and to people around the globe. The contributors to this volume develop an innovative theory of state failure that classifies and categorizes states along a continuum from weak to failed to collapsed.